THEPRIS6NER

   

So the question, which has been asked before, why does Six care? Answer, because he's in love with his own humanity, as well as being in love with 313, and 313 with him. And in the end that is what saved them both, and of course everything has it's price, and their cost was The Village!

    Two knows Six better than Six knows Six. Six is in love with his own humanity, he adores the smell of his own bright shining conscience. Noble Six, he only wants to do the right thing and that is what gives Six to Two when Six is faced with Sarah, 313's other self who was abused when she was a young girl, and the abused, in time, become the abusers. So to do the right thing, Six hopes to make a better Village. Six can give a better Village, a moral Village, freedom within the prison.

   In the end it was not a question of escape for Six, but a matter of survival, Two knew that. Two is a master of manipulation, see how he manipulated the situation between Six and 313. Two had to hand over The Village to a successor, which had been the plan right from the beginning.

   Curtis and his wife Helen volunteered for The Village because they wanted to have a family, which they could not have in the real world. But family life in The Village didn't turn out the way Two had expected, it rarely does for anyone. His son was a murdering homosexual, whose final act before committing suicide was matricide! So Two wanted to escape, escape back to his wife Helen, for them both to look forward and not back to The Village.

    As for The Village Guardian, I think I wrote previously that Six had created the Guardian out of his own fear. Well it wasn't until last night, when I was watching the final episode ‘Checkmate’ for a second time, that I realised that the Guardian only appears in the presence of Six! This was to stop Six from escaping, and in the episode ‘Darling’ the Guardian was released by Six's fear that he was going to lose the love of his life 4-15.

    I wonder if everyone who is taken to The Village works for Summakor? The woman with the wink does, as does 147, 909, the Shopkeeper, Curtis, Helen, and of course Michael.

    They threw everything at Six, loathing, love death, with death Two thought Death would open Six up to reveal the Six inside, but he was wrong, because Six continued to resist. It wasn't until Six was faced with a damsel in distress, 313, that he finally gave in to save her. And it has to be said that that has been Six's trouble all along, even with his predecessor, he never could refuse a damsel in distress!

    It was difficult enough to try and convince people living in The Village that there is another place. But in New York it was even harder to convince his driver that he was living a parallel life as a taxi driver in The Village! How can you convince someone of that?

    There are two further echoes from the original series, "Tick, tick, tick tick" as two mimics the ticking of the clock, and the "Tic, tic tic" of the new Number two in Free For All. As well as The Village cemetery, in both Villages people are buried in the sand. In the desert, on the beach, it's both sand! and that Butler of Two's/Curtis, who is always lurking somewhere in the background, I wonder if it was on purpose that he looks like the actor, Oliver MacGreery, who played both the gardener and the electrician in the original Arrival?

    So THEPRIS6NER series has come and gone, but will live on within the DVD box set, which I will watch from time to time, as I do the original series. There may not be the same amount of material to play with from this series that there is with the original. But I believe there still enough meat on the bones to pick over now and again. So don't think that you have read the last about THEPRIS6NER here.

   Will THEPRIS6NER become a cult classic as the original? I don't think so, as that was not the producers idea. But to show what life has become like. The invasion of people's privacy. The erosion of people's individuality and personal freedom within society.

    You could say that life for many in The Village is perfect, but not for Two and his wife it wasn't. I mean Two placed such an importance on love and family life, but look at the mess his own family life got into. Anyway, that's enough for now, and the end of my preliminary articles on what has been for me, a thoroughly enjoyable, and at times exciting series. Not all fans of the Prisoner will agree with me on that. Perhaps, given time, fans will find some appreciation for what is basically THEPRIS6NER of it's time.

DAS - BCNU